Conversation with
Kay Ryan

Poetry Workshop
(English 192V)
Stanford University
Winter Quarter 2010

Peter Y. Chou

An Experience with Mother Goose at Cornell

    I was a graduate student at Cornell (1963-1970) with Professor Harold A. Scheraga who had a research team of 40 studying protein structure and function. We were in the basement of Baker Lab. Then in 1967 we moved to the 6th floor of an adjacent new seven-floor Spencer T. Olin Chemistry Research Lab. One day while taking the elevator, an elderly gentleman was talking to a student about Mother Goose— how it inspired him with a chemical discovery. I was so fascinated that I didn't get out of the 6th floor when the elevator door opened, but stayed when it went to the 7th floor. I followed his conversation until it dawned upon me that he was Professor Vincent du Vigneaud, the name plate on his office. Scheraga had told our group that Prof. du Vigneaud was forced to retire at 65 from the Cornell Medical School in New York City. Since there was room on the 7th floor of the new building, he welcomed du Vigneaud to Ithaca. In his book-lined shelves of biochemical journals and textbooks, du Vigneaud pulled out a copy of Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes. He read to us "Milking":

Cushy cow, bonny, let down thy milk, And I will give thee a gown of silk; A gown of silk and a silver tee, If thou will let down thy milk for me. — William S. Baring-Gould & Ceil Baring-Gould, The Annotated Mother Goose (1962), #490, p. 213 Image: The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book, Assembled by Iona & Peter Opie, Oxford University Press, 1955, p. 75 Source: T. Clark, English Mother's Catechism for her Children (1824)

    Du Vigneaud was doing research on oxytocin, a peptide hormone of nine amino acids: Cys-Tyr-Ile-Glu-Asp-Cys-Pro-Leu-Gly. The Cysteine residues form a sulfur bridge. He was successful in synthesizing this pituary hormone in 1953 that is involved in lactating (breastfeeding) mothers. Oxytocin acts at the mammary glands, causing milk to be "let down" into a collecting chamber, from where it can be extracted by compressing the areola and sucking at the nipple. Somehow this passage on "let down thy milk" in Mother Goose inspired du Vigneaud in his hormonal research that he won the Chemistry Nobel Prize in 1955 for the first synthesis of a polypeptide hormone. "Remember," he smiled at us, "there are wisdom nuggets in Mother Goose!" I was so humbled by his surprising tale that I promised myself never to look down on children literature because I'm now a grown-up. I also began meditation to rediscover that childlike wonder I had lost during the education process in high school as well as at Columbia and Cornell.

Elisa shares Mother Goose with me in Palo Alto

    I moved to Palo Alto from Boston in May 1985 to care for my elderly parents. My 8-year old niece Elisa who lived a few blocks away would often come for visits. As she was quite precocious, Elisa would often read her favorite poems and books to me. I'll cite three Mother Goose poems she shared with me. One day she sang from Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes (#533 in Annotated Mother Goose, p. 218) on the seven days of the week:

    This rhyme proceeds nicely with "child" appearing and rhyming in every line except the last. The end-rhymes face/grace, woe/go, giving/living, day/gay make this poem memorable. There are many alliterations— fair/face/full/far; bonny/blithe; good/gay. Then I asked Elisa whether this description is accurate. She told me "Yes. I surveyed the birthdays of my friends and they seem to match what Mother Goose said. When I found out she surveyed only five friends, I told her that her statistical sampling is too small for scientific accuracy. Since my brother-in-law David is a high-energy physicist, I suggested Elisa ask her Dad to explain it to her much better than I could. In my first computer class at Foothill College, I chose as my final project (12-5-1991) an analysis of "Birthdays of 27 Musical Conductors". The results showed a preponderance of musical conductors been born on Sundays (33% vs. 14% average), in the Astrological Sign of Aries (33% vs. 8% average), and the Chinese Zodiac Years of the Rat (22% vs. 8%). What is most fascinating about this occurrence is that Sunday is the first Day of the Week, Aries, the first Astrological Sign (Spring: March 20), and the Rat Year is the first in the Chinese Zodiac Cycle of 12 Animal Years. The fact that a greater than average (from double to quadruple) of musical conductors were born under these first signs of the week, month, and year, shows their natural ability to lead and orchestrate a diverse group of musicians to create a harmonious work of symphony. Is there something special about Sunday's child that Mother Goose devoted two lines to it and just one to those born on the other days of the week? Perhaps her prophecy is true.

    Another Mother Goose Rhyme Elisa brought to my attention was "As I was going to St. Ives":

As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives; Every wife had seven sacks, Every sack had seven cats, Every cat had seven kits; Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, How many were there going to St. Ives? — William S. Baring-Gould & Ceil Baring-Gould, The Annotated Mother Goose (1962), #678, p. 270

    One day Elisa was singing happily this Mother Goose Rhyme—

What are little boys made of? Frogs and snails, and puppy dogs' tails, That's what little boys are made of. What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and all that's nice, That's what little girls are made of. — William S. Baring-Gould & Ceil Baring-Gould, The Annotated Mother Goose (1962), #320, pp. 175-176 Illustration of "Children Playing" by Walter Crane, p. 203

It suddenly occurred to me what Mother Goose said was indeed true. I showed Elisa a biochemistry book with illustrations showing the similarities which amazed her. Five years later, I wrote a poem on this experience in a Galway Kinnell poetry workshop at Squaw Valley (Web links added in poem for biochemical images):

Some Thoughts on Rhyming Poems

    When I discovered the musicality of Swinburne's verses (circa 1964) during my graduate studies in chemistry at Cornell, I shared them with my sister. She liked "Chorus from Atalanta in Calydon" and we both memorized the opening stanza: "Before the beginning of years, / There came to the making of man / Time, with a gift of tears; / Grief, with a glass that ran;" Later, I found Swinburne's "Rococo" to my liking and memorized the entire 80-lines poem. I would recite the lines to the stars during my walks home across the Cornell campus from Baker Lab of Chemistry to my apartment in Ithaca. I gave my paperback copy of Swinburne to my sister and bought the complete 6-volume set of Swinburne's Poems (London, 1904) in a used Manhattan bookshop on Fourth Avenue. When I attended my first poetry workshop at Foothill College Summer Writing Conference (1987), a poetry instructor asked the class to name their favorite poet, I said "Algernon Swinburne". Nobody in the class knew who he was. The instructor told me, "He's out of fashion. People rarely read him these days." When I brought my rhyming verses to class, everyone told me that my style was archaic, that I had better learn to write free verse. I left Swinburne behind, and began reading modern poets, and typed a few hundred poems in learning the craft of free verse.

    On March 24, 1990, I attended a Poetry Workshop with Gary Snyder in San Jose. He told us a story that has remained vivid with me— “My grandson was stomping around the room to Blake's Tiger poem— "Tiger Tiger. burning bright, / In the forests of the night" with such relish that it was so much fun just watching him. There's something about rhymes that's riveting and liberating.” Since I admire Gary Snyder's nature poems and Zen lifestyle, his remarks about rhymes stayed with me. While writing about the Mother Goose Rhymes which a Nobel Laureate and my niece shared with me, I tried to show that these nonsense rhymes were not frivolous but led to some scientific insights. Just found this new gem in Mother Goose Rhyme #590 that's simply delightful—

In the May 2006 issue of Poetry, Kay Ryan writes about nonsense rhymes in her article "Laugh While You Can: A Consideration of Poetry". In closing I like to share a poem that brought much laughter in a Sharon Olds workshop on July 11, 1990 at Squaw Valley— "Baseball Memories". It closes with my dear four-year old niece Elisa from whom I've learned so much.